First Baptist Church, Live Oak Day 7 and Farewell

The First Baptist Live Oak Haiti Mission Team's last full day at the JBA Orphanage in Bercy was indeed a full day, full of the Holy Spirit's guidance, full of activity, full of Joy.

Joy reached into Heaven as numerous new souls were won for Christ in evangelistic canvassing, about 100 patients received life-sustaining treatment in the final day of medical clinics, and the two starving babies taken in during our stay were showing progress. Peanut was showing promise of recovery and the abandoned Maria also appeared destined to survive, although the extent of her permanent physical impairment from her abandonment ordeal will not be known for months. Both babies need continued prayer.

Rob, who is always joyous anyway, was especially happy because he finished a two-day project of painting the newly-installed paneled ceiling in the mission quarters, a professional job that
brightened the quarters. Materials and Haitian labor used to install the ceiling was purchased by funds donated by contributors to the First Baptist team's mission fund.

Following up on Friday's shoe fitting session at the elementary school, April, Jared and Anda distributed two chests full of shoes, some of them brand new, some hardly used, that had been donated by various Baptist church members in Florida.

Nurses Linda, Wynyard, Kristen and Bob saw patients throughout the morning while Melody and Kristina ran the pharmacy and Voncile and Pam enrolled and screened the patients. In the afternoon, Wynyard and Linda saw the last of the clinic patients while evangelism teams fanned out over the rural Bercy village, visiting thatched huts door-to-door, sharing the e-cube, passing out Creole tracts and praying for several more villagers to receive Christ as their savior. It was a great time of rejoicing.

As God would have it, during the afternoon evangelism outreach, nurses Kristen and Bob also were able to treat several patients who had not made it to the clinic, including a man in the severe grips of malaria, an elderly woman with a high fever from an ear infection and a woman in severe pain from a tooth extraction.

That evening, Pastor Nathan of the Bercy Baptist church held a new believers class where he asked Pastor Charlie from Jacksonville and four Live Oak team members, April, Jared Kristen and Bob, to give their testimonies and answer questions. About 20 new converts to Christianity attended, prayed and were welcomed into the family of God as brothers and sisters. Pastor Nathan, through interpreter Herby, said he looked forward to the day when we would all share a table in Heaven and all language barriers would vanish in praising God.

Rusty talked about how touched the Terre Noir church members were by the "Proclaimer" electronic Bible in the Haitian Creole language and said he planned to distribute the last three of the sets donated by First Baptist Live Oak to remote villages in the mountain area. "The Terre Noir people were mesmerized by it," Rusty said. "They sat there for an hour just listening to it." The director of the Church of God mission nearby that feeds 1300 people per day inquired as to how he can get more of the remarkable little electronic Bible boxes that are loud enough to address a large crowd and can be powered by solar power, battery, built-in hand cranked generator, or plug-in 110-volt electric service. One of the sets had been donated to his mission.

On the final evening devotion, Bob marveled at how God had worked in putting such a talented team together in a very short time and how He had added three great assets from outside the Live Oak community, Pastor Charlie and contractor Richard from Jacksonville and missionary Tasha from Kansas City, to help the team accomplish so many tasks for the glory of God.

On Day 8, hugs, prayers, and tears marked the beginning of the trip home for the happy but bone-weary team members. Rusty remarked on how many accomplishments had been made, the saving of many souls by Christ through evangelism being paramount among them. He asked each team member to return again.

The travels, however, ended on a very somber note as, upon arrival in Miami, Kristen and Jared learned by cell phone that one of their children was seriously ill and in the hospital in Gainesville. It was grim reminder of the sacrifice people make in leaving their families behind to venture out into the international mission field. There was a tearful prayer session on a concourse bench as team members laid hands on Kristen and Jared. Kristen's father met the couple at Jacksonville International in the dark of night to whisk them away to Gainesville while Jerry and Troy met the rest of the team with the First Baptist bus for a subdued ride home.